Adarsh Ajit
The circumstantial behaviour, pre- and post- exodus, is the sole idea conceived and depicted by Agnishekhar and Khema Kaul in their jointly published anthology of poems, No Earth Under Our Feet. Though the place Kashmir is physically lost to all Pandits yet Kashmir flows agonizingly through the veins of Khema. She challenges all to come out with the truth and uncover hypocritical attitudes. She explores the character of the two cities of her beloved nation. In one the throats of her own people are slit, and in another she hangs their portraits on the walls:
In one city/heads were slit/in another/we hung their portraits.
The deceptions, veils, masks and vacillations are so deadly that Agnishekhar does not fear the bullets, rifles and guns because their intention is clear to him. It is only the chameleon-like character and lethal silence that terrorises him. Resultantly he prefers disappearance to annihilation:
The desire for living/terrorizes me/more than/extinction
Despite the blows received in exile the courage, sustenance and emotional warmth of Pandits to fight back does not recede. Khema’s poems contain irony, nostalgia, allusions to the history of Kashmir, puns and autobiographical touches. Her romance turns into beauteous moments:
moments/quarrelled with me/like jilted lovers
In spite of watering the vegetation Khema is apprehensive. She feels that the nettles may grow here and there. Thus she tries to control her rage. Having a strong cultural inheritance behind her, she closes her eyes to keep the soil away so that the seeds don’t fall from her eyes, in any form, to avoid the growth of a forest because even her tear drop can cause havoc. Tragically she is alone and burns on many hearths:
I/alone/and/numerous hearths/wet with tears/burn/and flicker/slowly
Reinforcing Khema’s belief Agnishekhar feels that he is a snowman and the thread is lost to him and to all other refugees. He tells Lal Ded that they are in the same boat and the daughters in exile are also in the oven and that the home is devastated to rubble:
restless/ like me/ to reach home/ but/ myhome/is /rubble
Khema’s The tramp 1 is a revelation of the past, representation of the present and outline of the future. 6000-year-old history of Kashmir is a witness to political dramas, changing courses and the repeated exoduses of Pandits. The tickling of the clock compels the displaced Pandits to change their emotional life. Khema states that in the past Pandits immersed bones and ashes of the dead in the Ganges but now their priority has changed. It will be Vitasta in the future. Defining home in Homelessness she feels that her river of civilization and legacy is in Kashmir. In exile and displacement her struggle is confined to digging springs:
A mighty river is ours/but/ we have to dig springs.
Agnishekhar redefines exodus and says that the track leading to the refugee camp passes through the crematorium. Exodus of Pandits is a big tragedy in the history of modern India but the greater tragedy is the loss of privacy to the youths in the camps. Agnishekhar’s portrayal of a couple desiring to kiss and embrace each other in the bushes near the crematorium describes this tragedy: the crematory/pities/ our/exile
Khema fears that the forces which threw her out of her home are at work still and make her live like a nomad. She visualises her home:
in sunshine /hungry / thirsty/ empty/receiving stones and bullets from the neighbours/and/ cursing me
Khema’s nostalgia is at its peak. She tries to explore the winds of her lost valley Kashmir and the places which symbolise her existence. She asks the shawl vendor in exile about Lal Chowk and Habbakadal. The answer she gets is sincere and political at the same time:
God! / Mercy! /Dear sister. / Kashmir/ without you/ is/ crying.
Khema proclaims that her enemies are bankrupt and that even her close ones and well-wishers are empty and hollow. She has the wounds, scars and pain that keep her alive. She unfolds:
When he wasn’t/I got him from the womb of memory/ this was skill of war/against myself/or else/he would have killed me/by his absence/this alone/is/my life-secret
Sneering at even India for its callousness and apathy towards the community in exile, Agnishekhar in the much acclaimed poem The Jawahar Tunnel says the mountain of Panchal is weeping on Nehru’s failed Kashmir policy:
here/we faced/sun the acid…..the sky/was the quilt for our sleep/on/Hindustan/how great is / MY COUNTRY!
Agnishekhar advocates that even a drop of tear can wash away all the sins but all maintain silence.
Where we were standing/our silence/was a defence against/our extinction.
Even the old displaced Pandits aspire for a glimpse of the valley before they close their eyes. For the ailing exiles even a moment in the shade of the chinar tree can prove panacea. What can be more painful to a patriot and religious man than despair? The father of Agnishekhar utters at his death time in exile:
Let us change our religion/and/return to the shade of the chinar/to die in motherland/only once
Without dividing the homeland Kashmir into opposing philosophies and various territories Agnishekhar attacks those who raise petty questions in the name of human rights whereas a mother’s motherhood is neglected:
Nobody talks about/ mothers/ and/their rights
The wounds and gashes of the community in exile are for sale in the literary markets:
Don’t sell me/after embellishing me/in/a lyric
Not only the people of Kashmir give continuous blows to Pandit exiles and think of the exodus of Pandits as the conspiracy of the then governor but the then Prime minister of India also neglected them. He gives no attention to the delegation of Pandits in the poem The Prime Minister and the Fly. Personifying a fly with multi-dimensional living and non-living entities Agnishekhar wants exodus to get imprinted in the history as a black dot:
If I were this fly/walking/on the snow-white shirt of/the Prime Minister/I/would be a stain/on the shirt/till the dirge of/democracy.
Some of Khema’s poems do not look cohesive in content due to translation otherwise Arvind Gigoo, the translator, has succeeded in conveying the ideas of the two poets:
A child/spread his hand/out of the tent/and gripped the sun/His smile burnt
Fifty poems of Agnishekhar and fifty poems of Khema Kaul form two clusters of poems in which the poets mourn the death of an ethos, brotherhood and mutual love. They are critical of those forces that shout and sell pseudo-secularism, distort history and present a wrong and incorrect picture of the political and social set-up prevalent all around. The hundred poems in the book are a significant contribution to the Literature in Exile produced by Kashmiri Pandit authors. Expression of grief away from home is a marked feature of these poems which are pregnant with ambiguity, imagery and metaphors.
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